Day 3: Nola Livin'

Here I am rockin' an Olde Queens Tavern tee. Shout out to all who frequent this spot and all the employees. I'm standing outside of The Ruby Slipper - an extremely popular breakfast spot in New Orleans.

The Ruby Slipper was very busy, therefore we had to wait a little more than half an hour to be seated, but it was well worth the wait.

The Costa Rican.

The Costa Rican is rice and beans over a warm salsa with two eggs, chorizo and slices and fried plantains. I'm a big fan of Spanish-influenced cuisine and this dish was a delicious way to start my day.

The Ruby Slipper has three locations throughout the city of New Orleans. There was a sign on the wall inside of the restaurant that described a little bit about the story behind premise of the restaurant.

There's no place like home!

After brunch at The Ruby Slipper, we wandered around a bit and stumbled upon a small shop with decadant sweets. The shop is called Bittersweet Confections.

The menu

The picture above only features a part of their menu. I wound up getting Bittersweet Confections' version of a peanut butter cup.

Their peanut butter cup is a milk chocolate and peanut butter filling, piped into a dark chocolate shell, garnished with white and milk chocolate hazelnut sticks. YUM!

Me and my peanut butter cup

At my stop at Bittersweet Confections, the employee, Ben, recognizted my Olde Queens' t-shirt and told me that he was originally from Jersey. He then gave us some informatoin of some fun spots in New Orleans to hit up before we go back to Jersey.

After the brief stop at the sweet shop, we wandered into a glass blowing shop.

An ocean scene all created on-premise in the shop.

Everything in the shop was blown on premise. We got to go into the back of the store to see the glass blowers at work. There wasn't too much work going on at the time of our visit, but it was still interesting to see where everything is made.

Then, we continued forth on our walking journey and made our way to The National World War II Museum.

Posting up outside of the museum

The museum was very interesting and informative. Something that stuck out very vividly in my mind were the posters of propaganda between the U.S. and the Japanese that were used during wartime. They are so extreme and because of this, they seem as though they are jokes. 

I took pictures of examples from both sides - The U.S. & Japan.

Quick Ways To Spot A Jap. (US Propaganda)

President Roosevelt Depiction. (Japan Propaganda)

As a student it only cost $13 dollars to enter The World War II Museum - not too bad of a price. Afterwards, we found another small museum to explore. It is called the Contemporary Arts Center.

The Contemporary Arts Center was only $3 dollars to enter, so we figured...

why not check it out? 

The museum had 7 different exhibits to check out. There was one exhibit called "The Lion: For Slightly" by Eliza Zeitlin. 

It's a pretty intricate piece of artwork constructed of primarily metal pipes and wooden planks. You can climb the exhibit "at your own risk."

So I did.

 My climb. <-- click the link to see a video.

Here I am beginning my climb.

Another exhibit that is currently on display in the Contemporary Arts Center is, "a thousand threads" by Luba Zygarewicz.

a thousand threads is an exhibit that is constructed of solely tea bags, and a massive amount at that. 

Pretty unique idea.

a thousand threads...without Me

a thousand threads...WITH Me.

All of the other exhibits inside of The Contemporary Arts Center were interesting, I would suggest going there if you're ever in town. Not only is it interesting, but it's pretty inexpensive to check out.

(If you don't think that $3 dollars is inexpensive you probably shouldn't travel to New Olreans, or anywhere for the matter, really.)

After our brief museum binge, we needed to grab a quick snack.

A praline!

What is a praline you ask?

A hunk of butter, brown sugar and pecans. They come in different flavors, such as chocolate, coconut and peanut butter. Even though I'm a peanut butter fanatic, I always grab the original when it comes to this tasty treat.

If you've never had a praline, heed this warning:

NEVER SETTLE FOR A PLEBEIAN PRALINE.

I tried a few different pralines around Nola and I found one that was amazing, finally.

The praline was from Southern Kicthen Candymakers. They ran about $2 bucks each.

The delicious, scrumptious, winning praline.

After the hunt for the perfect praline, we walked around a little and found some cool spots - like Peaches Record Store.

Got myself a Peaches Record Store Tee! I'll be sure to wear it in my future travels.

Our stop inside of the record store was short-lived, because we wanted to continue forward with our wandering. The next attraction we stopped at was La Plaza de Armas.

La Plaza de Armas is more or less the main square of the area. 

Here I am inside the gated area of La Plaza de Armas of NOLA.

After all of our museum visits, adventuring, snacking and shopping it was about that time of day...

HAPPY HOUR! 

In our search to find a bar to grab a drink, we stumbled upon this gem of a sign.

Don't know where this sign is from...don't know what  this sign actually means.

So, we decided to stop in somewhere called, Checkered Parrot. They had a two-for-one special. I tried a Nola Blonde and Jessy got a Abita Amber.

Happy Hour - Nola Blonde at Checkered Parrot.

After our happy hour drinks, we went over to a local recording studio with JT the Publicist and local artist, Kevin Stylez.

It was pretty awesome to be inside of a studio in New Orleans. I had the opportunity to jam with Kevin. He sang along as I played the guitar to some songs, like Miguel's "Do You."

Vibing with Kevin Styelz.

After the studio, it was time to eat. We were starved. We went over to a restaurant called Roux. I ordered the gumbo. Yum!

The gumbo with chicken and andouille sausage.

NOTE: andouille is pronounced "an-do-ee." It is basically just a smoked, well-seasoned pork sausage.

Dinner at Roux was very enjoyable. Afterwards, Jessy and I headed on over to Bourbon Street.

We stopped in at an oyster bar that my friend, Dave works at. It's called Le Bayou. But guess what?

We didn't get oysters.

We got drinks instead.

The bartender made me his drink special of the day. It was a rum drink with muddled strawberry, garnished with a cucumber. It was fruity and refreshing. Mmm!

The drink of the day made by Mr. Dave Bliss

Though the gumbo from Roux was very tasty, it didn't keep me full for too long. I decided it was time for snack from Le Bayou.

I got an appetizer called, "Shrimp Ya - Ya."

Shrimp Ya-Ya

This dish was absolutely delicious. It's shrimp in a cajun pesto sauce - therefore, the pesto had a bit of a kick to it. It comes with two pieces of garlic toast.

The creaminess of the pesto sauce with the cajun kick was a great complementary combination. 

After Le Bayou we ventured over to a bar appropriately called, Last Call.

Got a drink or two, then called it a night. 

Til tomorrow!

Day 2: Nola Livin'

Here I am wearing my A$AP Rocky t-shirt. Shout out to A$AP fans, all my fellow Sony College Reps and the good people at Sony Music and RCA Records.

In the picture above I am on the Streetcar - the form of public transportation in the city of New Orleans. It is pretty inexpensive.

$1.25 for a one-way trip

$3.00 for a day pass.

Here is a picture of the supermarket, Rouses. It is the most popular grocery chain down here. 

Would you like some cheese with that wine? This cheese was deeeee-lish. But at $23 per pound, I passed up on making a purchase. Good thing it was on sample.

New Orleans knows how to pull at my heart strings...Peanut butter cover pretzels!

But the maddness does not stop there...

Peanut butter covered PEANUTS.

I didn't purchase any of these sweet treats, but I did take a sample or two.

You can purchase alcohol virtually anywhere in New Orleans. This is something very different fromwhat I am accustomed to, being a Jersey resident. Anyway, in the grocery store I stumbled upon 7 different types of the local, Abita beer. 

Here are all of the different types of Abita beers that Rouses carries.

1 - Jockamo IPA

2 - Purple Haze (Raspberry flavored)

3 - Strawberry

4 - Turbodog (Stout)

5 - Restoration Pale Ale

6 - Golden

7 - Amber (Abita's flagship flavor)

After the trip to the grocery store, we went over and grabbed some Sunday Brunch at a restaurant and bar called Santa Fe.

Here is a picture of the outdoor seating arrangements at Santa Fe.

I think that Santa Fe's menu could be best described as Creole-influence Mexican dishes. I wound up ordering a dish called Rueda de huevo.

Rueda de huevo - a fried tortilla topped with sweet potato mash, pulled chicken and an egg. 

The dressings include, jalapenos, guacamole and sour cream.

The dish I ordered was absolutely delicious, it tasted like nothing I have ever tried before. The sweetness of the sweet potato mash mixed with the spice of the pulled chicken was very unique, yet balanced. To top it off, the crunch of the fried tortilla pulled all of the textures together very nicely.

After brunch we headed back to our hostel for a minute just to put some of our things down and then headed back out to the Streetcar.

Here is Jessy getting onto the Streetcar.

We took the Streetcar to City Park. City Park is extremely large and beautiful. It has a lot of different activities ranging from outdoor concerts, to restaurants and to scuplture gardens.

Here I am standing in a scenic spot - that's a big tree!

Just standing outside of the Botanical Gardens...

Riding a lion statue, located next to one of the pavillions in the park.

After walking around for a bit and observing all of the beauty of the park, we made a quick pit stop at the Morning Call Cafe to listen to some live music and grab some beignets.

The Morning Call Cafe.

Here is the live band that was playing, their name was, Ovidio Giron y Los Ranas.

Here are the beignets from Morning Call.

I will let you know what place has better beignets down here. So far, the ones from Morning Call were a bit doughy, but I intend to try more...from different places.

When we were swinging on a giant swing in City Park, we got to talking to a local man named, Dallas. He told us of some local 'hotspots' for food. 

So...

After walking around City Park, we were hungry, yet again. So we walked over to a place that Dallas reccommended called, Mandina's.

I got a shrimp Po' Boy.

Shrimp Po' Boy.

For those of you who do not know, a "Po' Boy" is basically a sub/hoagie (whichever you prefer to call it based on your region, respectively). If you get a po' boy "dressed" that means it comes with lettuce, tomato, mayo, and pickles.

As you can see from the picture, I got a fried shrimp po' boy, dressed, It was delicious. I am a firm believer that the bread can make or break a sandwich, and this french loaf definitely sealed the deal on this local favorite.

That's all for now, off to explore some more...

Day 1 - Nola Livin'

Here I am, at the Philadelphia Airport wearing a t-shirt from Peru. I figured I'd start off my new adventure with a shirt from one of my most recent adventures. 

Here I am right after I touched down in New Orleans!

Right after my arrival to New Orleans, I went to the first hostel I will be staying at called, India House.

(Pictures of the hostel soon to come).

Then I went to a restaurant called "Bayou Beer Garden." They had some great bar food. I got a buffalo chicken wrap and an order of disco fries.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not the biggest fan of fries, nonethless disco fries, but these things were amazing! There were bits of roast beef in the gravy that made the dish. 

Here's a pictures of the beer I had: Abita Strawberry.

Abita is the local beer of New Orleans. There are many different drafts and flavors. Right now, the Strawberry flavor is in season. It was fruity, but not too sweet - making it a wonderful celebratory arrival drink.

After my Strawberry Abita, I tried an Abita Amber - that is the most popular draft. It was tasty, but then it was time to go out and venture a bit around the city.

I wound up wandering in the direction of Frenchmen Street - home to some AMAZING live music.

Here's a picture of some street performers I saw along the way.

I'm not sure if you can tell from that picture, but there is a man laying on a bed of nails, followed by another bed of nails ontop of him, followed by a man on top of that and then topped off with a lady standing on slippers with nails pertruding out of them. 

Yep - that was... interesting.

The rest of my night was spent checking out various different night clubs along Frenchmen Street.

Apple Barrel was an intimate club with a population of primarily older folk. There was a three-piece blues band playing. 

Note: The guy's face in the bottom left hand corner of this shot was unintentional.

Here is the three-piece blues band jamming inside of Apple Barrel.

After the Apple Barrel, I made my way over to another nightclub called, The Spotted Cat. This place was a bit bigger and had a more vibrant, young-adult populated crowd. 

There was a five-piece jazz/blues band playing at The Spotted Cat that consisted of a trombone, saxophone, trumpet, upright bassist and percussionist. They sounded amazing.

Here is the inside of the well-known nightclub, The Spotted Cat. 

Note: The wooden cat in this picture is indeed, spotted.

That about wraps up my first night in the great Creole City. 

WHO DAT?!